Fender guitar pickups?

  • Thread starter Thread starter DJL
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Oh well, i'm going to be ignored......

and that's fine.
just promise me, first chance you get, to play a guitar that's been fitted with some bill Lawrence single coils, and then a/b them against the specials.....

that's what i did.

the Lawrence were, by far, much quieter and more toneful to my ears, without the 60 cycle hum....
and they're not humbuckers.

for less than the price of a trio of specials, you can get 3 L-290's

$40 a piece.

I've been kicking myself for not trying some years ago.....
 
Okay, I want to clarify my statement about pickups. When I say that the only difference in them is output what I'm saying is that pickups are all just magnets with wire wrapped around them. more wire=stronger signal, stronger magnet=stronger signal. There isn't anything else to change in a pickup.
 
I have to chime in here.

I have had texas specials in my '66 strat for some time and i was going to get a set of 57/62 pickups to get a more vintage sound.

First I wanted to do a refret and i got one of the best to do it (dale steele). I told him i was going to change pickups and he said "why don't you let me set the height of the ones you have....texas specials are really good pickups that will give you the sparkle and balance you're looking for...if they are set right".

I was skeptical (im one of those who can't learn anything new casuse I think i know everything already)....I wanted the strat to be 100% the 1st time I held it in my hands after the refret and setup. I decided to give him the benigit of the doubt and leave the TS pickups in.

when i went to pick up the guitar the texas specials were ALL the way down...flush with the pickguard. I thought to myself "ain't no way this is gonna sound right" When I plugged the guitar in my jaw hit the floor. The vintage glass and quack were there....and beautifully balanced...to tell you the truth I don't see how a strat could sound any better. I told Dale "man, its unreal that these texas specials are sounding sooooo good!" He said that texas specials have alot stronger magnetic pull than vintage pickups and that if they are set too high the sound gets a little midrangy and string vibration is hampered....and he added that 99% of players set them to high.

HE MADE A BELIEVER OUT OF ME!!!

im still kicking myself for not figuring this out myself...it was kind of obvious. but thats anciant history now...I have strat tone to die for now and didn't have to spring for another set of pups.

I will say this about bill lawrance pickups...they are very good...but...they are humbuckers. side by side, stacked, it dosen't matter any way you slice it ...they are humbuckers. single coils have 60 cycle hum......if there is no hum you have a humbucker on your hands.

don't want humbuckers on my strat.
 
jimistone, that's a great story. I've always set my p'ups with a nickle on top of it (Bridge only), fret the highest note on the neck and bring it up until the nickle touches the string. Then match the others by volume level. But, your suggesting that it's too high that way. I'll have to give it a try.
 
Well... a couple of thoughts.

First of all, Gonzo - I'm with you. I am a Lawrence convert. I have sets in two of my guitars, including my new guitar I built (with the very first Lawrence L-495 in the bridge :cool: ).

There is DEFINITELY more to pickups than the amount of output a pickup has. I think that many of the Fender pickups are decent, though I admit I only have experience with playing the stock ones in various models. I've heard great things about some of their recent Tele pickups, for example.

The Lawrence pickups have amazing tone without any of the single coil noise everyone is so used to in their strats. Your Texas Special "noiseless" set is not noiseless at all - the middle pickup of the set is reverse wound so the in between settings (2 and 4) will be quiet, but not the others. (You can reduce some of this noise, but it is inherent in the single coil design.)

Also, the Lawrence pickups actually have a low magnetic pull, which allows them to be placed closer to the strings without negative effects.

I don't know why, but Lawrence fans tend to become pretty rabid supporters. :D (Actually, I do know why - it is because of the amazing quality of the products and the even more incredible service that Bill and Becky give.)
 
yeah, i agree that positions 2 and 4 blend the reverse wound middle pickup with either the neck or bridge giving you a double coil humbucker effect and canceling the hum.

I will have to say that this is my only beef with texas specials. the "humbucker" modes of positions 2 and 4 suck. you lose all the glassy bell like tone and quack with those positions (as with all humbuckers). if i can find a single texas special pickup (not the reverse wound middle) i will take out the one i currently have and replace it. I love the "out of phase" sound of positions 2 and 4 when there is a regular wound middle pickup. I don't have alot of problem with hum...my '66 strat has a sheilding plate under the pickguard and if you have some distance from the amp its no big deal. YOU CAN'T GET A STRAT TONE WITH HUMBUCKERS....PERIOD!

i hear 60 cycle hum on most of my favorite recordings SRV "texas flood" jimi hendrix "purple haze" "foxy lady" ...just about everything recorded with single coils. the hum is part of the guitar sound and those recordings would not sound the same without it.

i have a gibson SG when i want the humbucker sound....i don't want it on a strat.
 
Hey Gonzo. Thanks for an excellent post on pickup characteristics.
Believe me, I for one wasn't ignoring all that good info.

I would like to ask you though, do you think the Bill Lawrence pups will still provide that "classic" strat tone? I immediately think of stuff like Bonnie Raitt, or Little Wing to describe the types of tone I want from my Strat. If the 290s will provide that, I may give them a try.


Twist
 
jimistone, you are incorrect, sir...

jimistone WROTE:
"I will say this about bill lawrance pickups...they are very good...but...they are humbuckers. side by side, stacked, it dosen't matter any way you slice it ...they are humbuckers...."

go back and review the bill lawrence site.
especially the information about the L-280s.....

i have a set in my strat-hybrid......
they are the L-280s models..........

they sound like the real deal, but real quiet, quacks like a duck!
;)

all that matters is how they sound, not how they're built
 
besides, i like the idea of this old guy sitting here...... working on my pickups....

Blwinder.jpg


:D
 
a Bill Lawrence pickup question

okay guys, I was thinking about getting some Lawrence's a while back, until I ran into "The Controversy."

The controversy is, there is really no guy named Bill Lawrence. There is the old guy who is really named Willi Lorenz Stich, who calls himself Bill Lawrence, at www.billlawrence.com, and then there is the guy who started the Bill Lawrence company with him, EZ Wajcman, who sells Bill Lawrence pickups at www.billlawrenceusa.com.

The first guy claims HIS pickups are the real deal. He is the guy who calls himself Bill Lawrence, and clearly at some point he worked with the second guy.

The second guy claims HIS pickups are the real deal, still wound on the same machines using the same processes as when the company started, etc., and those are the ones you can get through Stewart Macdonalds.

The prices are the same, the models look the same and are described the same. So my question is, where did you get your pickups, and do you know or care anything about this "controversy?" I ask because I always assumed that the old guy was the real Bill Lawrence, and he always claimed on his site that the pickups at Stewart Macdonalds were fakes, blah blah blah... But now that the new site by EJ Wacman has popped up, and he has told his side of the story, I notice a lot of the "old guy's" claims have disappeared from his site.

So which is which, who should I believe, and why does buying pickups have to be so difficult? Am I going to bet burned if I go with one over the other? Very confused about this...
 
very interesting, Charger

i would like to know the answer as well.

i was unaware of this.

i can say, that the pickups i bought from this group : http://www.billlawrence.com/
did do a great job on the pickups i recieved, and the transaction was straight up.......

also, i talked with a luthier in the atlanta area who said he had purchased some "bill lawrence" pickups through stewart mcdonald, and that they sounded like ass.

hm........
 
I think I'm going to start this as a new thread, since it now has nothing to do with the original topic...
 
jimistone said:
i hear 60 cycle hum on most of my favorite recordings. the hum is part of the guitar sound and those recordings would not sound the same without it.
Click to expand...

So what about those of us who have to live with 240v 50Hz? What sort of hum do we get???

--
BluesMeister
 
I immediately think of stuff like Bonnie Raitt, or Little Wing to describe the types of tone I want from my Strat. If the 290s will provide that, I may give them a try.


bonnie raitt uses Fender single coil pickups...texas specials in her signature strat. jimi hendrix's "little wing"is a clean guitar sound done in the out "of phase" position (the neck and the middle,,,i don't know if thats position 2 or position 4)

alot of jimi hendrix slow melodic rythem guitar was in this position..."castles made of sand" "the wind cries mary"

I LOVE that tone....you can't really nail it with a reverse wound middle pickup


as far as my being incorrect about the bill lawrance pickups being humbuckers....you said they don't have 60 cycle hum, and as far as I know, there hasn't been a single coil pickup invented yet that dosn't hum. Fender has put ALOT of research and development into that....they still don't have one.

the Fender vintage noiseless are humbuckers....lace sensers don't hum but they are not really single coils...they are hybirds and they don't have the vintage tone. Fenders most popular pickups (still) are single coils that hum thier asses off.
 
The Bill Lawrence 280 will give you the "vintage" single coil sound - think early 60's strat. They are noisless (humbuckers), but they really do have the single coil tone. The only thing I have heard that is comparable in a noiseless pickup is the Kinmans - and those are $250/set or so.

The Lawrence L-290 is almost a P-90/strat hybrid. Think 70% strat + 30% P-90. I have 290s in my new Frankenstrat, along with an L-495 (P-90 sound) in the bridge.

If you want a traditional strat tone without noise, go for the L280. A lot of people (Bill included, on his personal strat) do a 280 in the neck and middle, and then put a hotter L-290 in the bridge.
 
charger said:
I think I'm going to start this as a new thread, since it now has nothing to do with the original topic...
Click to expand...

I started this thread and I like what's being posted here. You don't have to start a new tread if you don't want, it's good right here. :)
 
I should have my new pickups today and I'm hoping to get them installed this weekend, if the gtr tech has time. I'm starting to get excited, hehehe.
 
you're getting texas specials right DLB? don't forget to set them low...almost flush with the pickguard.
 
Yeah, I got the Texas Specials and I'm hoping the guitar tech installs them this week.
 
Ok, I got the Texas Specials installed (their mounted pretty low), and I like them much better than the stock pickups. The Texas Specials seem more powerful and warmer (more mid's?) than the stock pickups and don't make as much noise. Thanks everyone for your help.
 
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